


that's as close as i'll get to loving you

by jugheadjones



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, Pining, Short, Unrequited Love, rude of me to write this but i thought it was worth sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 15:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19065001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: Fred asks Mary to be his girlfriend on a beautiful starry night with his best friend and third wheel slumped in the backseat of his car, waiting for him to finish up and drive them home.





	that's as close as i'll get to loving you

**Author's Note:**

> Today on "found in my google docs when tf did i write this"

“Mary… Are you seeing anyone?” 

From the backseat of the Ford, FP can only see the back of his best friend’s neck. Fred’s arm is outstretched across the back of Mary’s seat, but he’s not touching her. Fred knew well enough by now to keep his distance until Mary really wanted him to try it. His voice had been casual, but FP can hear the nerves jumping under his words.

That morning, Fred had touched up the paint job on his car, and the order of the day had been for FP and Fred to tear around town showing it off and amusing themselves. Fred had spotted Mary on her way home from work at the library and parked the car to ask her then and there to a movie. They’d been to the Bijou, then bowling, then Pop’s, then dancing, FP the third wheel all the time - he was tentatively part of the group, something like Fred’s third elbow at this point, attached, but mostly he was too stubborn to leave. He supposes it was his own fault - he third-wheeled greedily with them so often that the trio seemed normal now. 

He’d had a good time anyway - he and Mary always got along, and she and Fred had made sure he was included. But now they were here, idling in the dark street, the stars a silver glitter in the dark sky above them, the streetlamps all lit and himself waiting patiently for the couple to finish their conversation.

Mary seems to think about it a long time, as though running through a list of other suitors in her head. FP watches the two of them from behind, sulking at how good they looked together. 

“I suppose… No,” Mary replies, at last, turning so she and Fred are facing one another. Her short hair is outlined by the streetlamps, shoulder-length waves that flip out against her neck. They look in that moment like movie stars, the same way they had looked drinking two from a soda at Pop’s, a picture in an advertisement of a boyfriend and girlfriend. Perfectly matched. 

The tenderness is Fred’s next question is almost unbearable. He swallows shyly, his finger absentmindedly tracing a torn stitch on the Ford’s worn upholstery, his eyes all for Mary. FP can picture the lights above reflected in the depths of Fred’s eyes, the wide innocent gaze he turned on so that no one could say no to him. 

The next words from Fred’s lips steal all his breath away, shy and gentle and honest, his voice a loving whisper as soft as satin and honey in the dark as he plays with a lock of Mary’s hair. 

“Would you be my girl?” 

Mary smiles, and the pang of jealousy that FP’s heart gives is almost unbearable. He slits his eyes and pretends to be sleeping, his face upturned to the silver pepper of stars, his heart thumping and his hands damp. Even the words sounded like they’d been chosen from the plot of a film, but this was the one case where FP would give his friend more credit. Fred was an old-fashioned romantic in the best sense of the word, his mannerisms and his ways of speaking this tender. Sometimes, when they had their band, FP would uncover in Fred’s sheaves of awkward love songs lines of poetry so abrupt and so perfect that they made his hands shake. This was one of these. 

He holds his breath waiting for Mary to speak. She doesn’t. Instead, she leans in and steals a kiss from Fred’s lips, as softly and as gently as FP’s ever seen her do. 

“All right,” she says softly as they pull apart. Then she kisses him once more, and pops open the car door on her side, stepping out with her purse and beaming in the premature glow of the spring moon. 

She grins over her shoulder and walks up to the porch, waves them off heartily from her front step, and FP can tell that she’s ten times as thrilled as she’d let on. They don't speak for several blocks, until Fred pulls the car over to under a big drooping elm tree, and finally, they sit in the silver shade beneath it, Fred lowering his face to his hands and beaming into his palms. 

“Oh shit, FP,” he says, shaking like a leaf, hiding his smile in his hands. He sucks in a breath of joy, wide-eyed and awed and exuberant. FP places a hand on his back, though even that feels dirty, feels the heat of him, Fred’s pulse jackhammering through his veins. Fred touches his cheeks, thrilled and glowing, his face luminescent in the dark. “I’m so happy, FP, I’m so happy.” 

FP’s stomach sinks like a stone. 

He hasn’t seen Fred this happy since before he started working - after Artie’s death and the end of the baseball season, after the countless offers he’d turned down from colleges, all Fred had left was his car and the last few tired months of school and summer. Mary and the car were the last good things Fred had.

“I’m in love,” he says, giggling like a little kid. “I’m in love. Do you remember how much she used to hate me? Oh, God, I’m in love with her.” 

FP grins back, forces it with all his teeth. If he could have rewritten his whole past then and there, he would have, he would have changed everything to be in her place. “Fucking crazy, man.” 

Fred laughs and hides his face and then resurfaces, cuter than he’s ever been, hair all in disarray. “Shit, dude. Let’s go home. I’m so sorry, it’s so late.” 

Fred beams like the sun all the way back to the trailer park. FP creeps in the door and lays awake in bed for hours, listening to those five words in his mind, his best friend’s voice, 

_ would you be my girl, _ he mouths to the ceiling, and aches with a tenderness he hadn’t thought possible. 

He wouldn’t have hesitated. 


End file.
